Monument Annuity as an Economic Tool,and Its Application to Croatia

Preservation of the built heritage is not just a matter of preserving the historic features of buildings and landscape, but also of preserving their economic value. A building or site's historic character and economic value can be successfully preserved only if the building is well managed, maintained and conserved by the owner. Therefore, it is in the interest of the owner, to require anyone using such property to pay towards the costs through the collection of a monument annuity. The introduction of monument annuity in Croatia has already had a considerable effect on the amount available for expenditure on maintaining the cultural heritage. An annuity is a payment for the use of a fixed resource, such as land, natural resources or in this case a cultural monument. The theory of annuities has been developed by numerous economic theorists, primarily examining land annuities. The monument annuity provides an economic basis for collecting assets for the consumption of the monument in terms of its attributes and represents a pecuniary equivalent for direct and/or indirect monument consumption. It also regulates monument consumption and stimulates the owner to manage the monument with a view to its preservation. The concept of monument annuity represents an economic instrument through which the economic value of the monument is asserted on the market. Through its functions the annuity enables the management of protected built heritage as well as the realization of the most important objective of protection, not only the preservation of the monument value, but also the ‘wise use’ of built heritage in economic development.